‘Lokame Tharavadu’: Birthing an art ecosystem in Kerala

This mammoth exhibition, which has been extended till November 30, uses heritage buildings in Alappuzha to make an important statement about conservation and art infrastructure

270 artists. 3,000 artworks. 600,000 sq. ft. of display space spread across 3 sq km. And this does not include the 11,000 sq. ft. Durbar Hall in Kochi. If there’s one thing the ongoing Lokame Tharavadu art show in Kerala’s Alappuzha town has in spades, it’s ambition. Matching and possibly surpassing the Kochi Biennale at least in scale, this brainchild of artist Bose Krishnamachari, who is also the president of the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF), had a rather unfortunate birth. Like everyone else, Bose underestimated the pandemic and scheduled the show’s opening for April this year, only to be rebuffed rudely by the second wave. Now, the show is back, with extended dates, renewed vigour and sanitiser galore. Sometime in September 2020, Bose had wanted KBF to cobble together something to support Kerala’s artists — “it was important to give them confidence” — and the Board asked him to pick up the gauntlet. The artist took it on. “Unpredictability is beautiful,” he says. “I was up for it.” Existing travel restrictions initially confined focus to Kerala-resident artists, but soon Bose expanded it into a Malayali-only collection, with artworks shipped in from Paris, Dubai, Delhi, etc. For local artists, Bose scoured the State, from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram, visiting homes and studios over two months. “I found artists who had never shown anywhere,” he says. As the discoveries mounted, the modest idea soon morphed into its present mammoth shape. For almost a year now, the Mumbai-based Bose has been stationed in Alappuzha, in a rented flat run over by artists and volunteers and one chechi feeding them all. “Come to Shed D,” Bose tells me, when I call from the Kerala State Coir Corporation gate. I trudge over to a cavernous building, crossing grounds overgrown with vegetation, past a broken office chair basking in the sun, and am met by three stunning V.V. Vinu installations, in his signature material, the wood of the odollam or suicide tree.